Brain Food #668

The music goes on

Thoughts of the day

In today’s poem, David Lehman describes leaving the radio on while leaving his house, so he can return to the sound of music when he comes back home later in the day. Though pleasant as a concept, there is something about the darkness Lehman refers to that gives Radio some bleaker undertones, linked to the melancholy of loneliness.

Radio can also be a poem about coming back to something we left for ourselves, and about how we set up our own narratives to come back to them later. Something we do today may not have any tangible impact for a while, but this does not mean that the music is still not playing, somewhere.

When talking about Radio, the poet said, “the music goes on after you’ve gone, after one has left one’s apartment.” It is not necessarily about one’s legacy, but about how our acts live beyond us, and outside of us, even if we are not there to witness them. It is a comforting thought, in a way, that the music will still be there after we have pressed play, even if we are not there to listen to it.

Radio
by David Lehman

I left it
on when I
left the house
for the pleasure
of coming back
ten hours later
to the greatness
of Teddy Wilson
“After You’ve Gone”
on the piano
in the corner
of the bedroom
as I enter
in the dark

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